Our Goal
We are developing a legged robot capable of climbing any ferrous obstacle using Magnets as our method of adhesion. Which will be capable of performing the following actions:
- Walking on ground
- Climbing walls
- Transitioning corners
- Climbing along ceilings and overhangs
- Using attached tools and sensors
- Detecting and avoiding obstacles

Motivation
Industrial and maritime environments need to be inspected regularly. Although there are many solutions for remote visual inspections, they often fail in confined and narrow spaces. Other non-destructive, close range inspection techniques, like acoustic emissions testing, require close proximity of the sensor to the surface during the measurement. This is not feasible for tools such as drones, due to their inherent instability and short runtime. Our robot magnecko is designed to address these constraints.
Our aim is to develop a highly versatile motion platform for climbing applications in industrial environments. With the capability of using various sensors or attachments, precise measurements can be made directly while climbing or while staying stationary over long periods of time.
About Us
We are a team of 8 motivated engineering students at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) in Zürich with the goal of presenting a fully functional prototype at the Fokus Roll-Out on 30 May 2023. We are supported by the Robotic Systems Lab of ETH under the supervision of Prof. Dr. M. Hutter.

